Thursday, October 6, 2016

How the US Manipulates Humanitarianism for Imperialism #Aleppo

The United States is manipulating humanitarian concern in an
effort to protect its proxy militias and its imperial regime-change project in
Syria. The media and intellectual
classes are dutifully falling in line, promoting a narrative of military aggression
under the cover of “protecting civilians.”
These same “responsibility to protect” arguments led to the invasions of
Iraq and Libya, exponentially increasing the massacres, chaos, and proliferation
of violent extremism within those countries.
They are hypocritical, designed to further interests of conquest and
domination, and will lead to more death and destruction in Syria as well.

The United States has no stake in the wellbeing of Syrian
civilians, despite their condemnations of Russia’s offensive in Aleppo. This is clearly shown in the fact that the
people they are supporting are guilty of the same crimes they accuse Russia and
Syria of: indiscriminate attacks, targeting
of civilians, destruction of schools, hospitals,
etc. Furthermore, the offensive in
Aleppo is really no different from what the US did in Manbij, where they are
said to have incorporated a “scorched
earth policy” while they liberated the city from ISIS, whereby the civilian
population was treated “as if they were terrorists or ISIS supporters.” Arguably their conduct was even worse, as
they there earned the distinction of launching the
deadliest single airstrike on civilians out of the entire 5-year conflict,
massacring at least 73 where no ISIS fighters were present. The Manbij operation elicited no moral outcry
from the media and punditry, understandably since these were “unworthy
victims” given that they were our victims
and not those of our enemies. The same
can be said about the US operations in Kobani and Fallujah, whereby the entire
towns were essentially reduced to rubble without any uproar.

Saudi Arabia as well has no concern for Syrian civilians, as
they have been ruthlessly besieging and bombing Yemen, with the support and
help of the United States, for two years without any concern for civilian lives. Their assault has led to a humanitarian situation
even more dire than in Syria, leaving at least 19 million in
need of humanitarian assistance; in Syria it is estimated that a total of 18 million are
in need of aid.

Turkey as well is not concerned, as is evidenced by their
conduct towards their Kurdish population, yet the recent quiet by Erdogan over
the fate of Aleppo is indicative of an
understanding reached between him with President Putin, whereby Turkey
establishes a presence in northern Syria and blocks the advance of the Kurds,
and in return limits its support to the rebels and the insurgents in Aleppo.

The real reason the US is decrying the Russian operation is
the fact that they are staring aghast at the near-term possibility that their
proxy insurgency in Aleppo will be defeated.
Not only will this mark the decisive turning point in the war, the
rebels all-but being fully overcome with the Syrian government in control of
all the populated city centers except Idlib, but others have
argued that it could as well mark the end of US hegemony over the entire
Middle Eastern region in general. In
other words, the US is trying to turn global public opinion against the Russian
effort in an attempt to halt the advance and protect their rebel proxies trapped
inside Aleppo.

So, who are these rebels?

In short, they are an array of US-supported groups in
alliance with and dominated by al-Qaeda.

Expert analysis concurs, as Fabrice
Balanche of the Washington Institute details how these rebel alliances
indicate “that the al-Nusra Front dominates more different rebel factions,
including those considered ‘moderate.’”
He explains that al-Qaeda’s “grip on East Aleppo has only increased
since the spring of 2016.”

It is these fighters, al-Qaeda and their affiliates, that the
US is trying to protect from the Russians, and as well other US intelligence
operatives that are likely embedded with them.
The narrative that Russia is committing a humanitarian catastrophe is
intended to hide this fact, as well as to shift the blame for the suffering in Aleppo
off of the US’ shoulders. Yet it was the
US support to the rebels that is primarily responsible for the suffering.

To illustrate this, the people of eastern Aleppo never
supported the rebels nor welcomed them.
The rebels nonetheless “brought
the revolution to them” and conquered the people against their will all the
same. Of the few reporters who actually
went to the city, they describe how Aleppo has been overrun
by violent militants through a wave of repression, and that the people only
“saw glimmers of hope” as the Syrian army was driving them from the area. The people decried this “malicious
revolution” and characterized the rebel’s rule as a “scourge of terrorism.” This, of course, was of no concern to the US
at the time, who now proclaims to be the “protectors” of the civilians in
Aleppo.

Around 200-600,000
of the original population fled and relocated in the government-held western
part of the city. Of the civilians who
remain, they are primarily
the families of the fighters, who themselves are paid to stay and fight. The official numbers for those remaining are
200,000, yet the actual number is likely much lower, around
40-50,000.

Nonetheless, the remaining civilians who were trapped within
this warzone were prevented from leaving.

During the first ceasefire, humanitarian corridors were
opened and the civilians were encouraged by the Syrian army to leave, yet the
rebels stopped them, with reports saying they went as far as to shoot
at those who tried. The attempt to
evacuate the civilians was
condemned by the US, who argued that the innocent people “should be able to
stay in their homes.” The radical groups
were using the civilian population as human shields in order to protect themselves,
and the US was supporting it. Further corroborating
this is the special UN envoy Steffan de Mistura, who quotes reports indicating
that the rebels have been utilizing “intentional
placement of firing positions close to social infrastructure, aside and inside
civilian quarters.” This is because it has always been the policy of the
Syrian government to separate civilians from insurgents, as it is simply much
more militarily effective to fight against an enemy that is not ensconced
within a civilian population. Likewise, it
has always been US and rebel policy to prevent this separation.

According to a knowledgeable individual with contacts with
high level Syrian officials, the US and EU always rejected
the Syrian governments proposals to separate civilians from the fighters,
as they explained, “because
doing so will be helping you win.”
This makes sense, given that if all of the civilians from eastern Aleppo
were evacuated there would then be nothing stopping the Syrian army from
crushing the remaining fighters, and there as well would be no international
outcry over them doing so. The source explains: “Syria’s war is an urban war theater.
[The] only way for insurgents to compete is to use residential areas to
hide and operate out of. This is in
direct contrast to [the] Syrian army who would like to fight a theater totally
void of civilians.”

Those claiming to be protecting Aleppo’s civilians from
the Russian and Syrian onslaught are in actuality using them as a means to protect
their own success on the battlefield.

Given this, the strategy of the Syrian government has been to
bomb sporadically in order to scare the civilians and force them to
flee from areas controlled by the militants.
This is also why the Syrian army just recently halted
their advance in order to allow civilians to evacuate; they wanted the
civilians out of the picture so they could militarily defeat the rebels more
quickly and easily.

If one actually were concerned about saving the civilians in
eastern Aleppo it is pretty straight forward that one would try to evacuate the
civilians from the area, and that the backers of the rebel groups would put
pressure on them to allow this to happen.
From there it would follow that all sides abide by the UN Security Council
resolutions of which they agreed to, which call for the suppression of
financing, fighters, and support to al-Qaeda, for the suppression of al-Qaeda
“and all other entities
associated” with them, and “to eradicate the safe haven they have
established over significant parts of Syria,” of which Aleppo is one of the
largest.

Unfortunately, it is only Syria and Russia who are following
through on these commitments, while the US and its allies are consciously
blocking them. The media and
intellectual opinion are as well falling in line, obscuring
from the narrative all of these inconvenient truths that do not support the
interests of the policy planners in Washington.
In this way, the media are shown to be completely subservient to state
power, drumming up support for another aggressive war based on falsities and
half-truths in the exact same way that led to the continuing catastrophes in
Libya and Iraq. When the US was driving
ISIS from Manbij, just as Syria is now driving al-Qaeda from Aleppo, killing
hundreds of civilians at a time, there was not so much as a debate about it,
much less an international outcry.

Yet now there are countless calling to “save” Syrians by
bombing them and flooding the warzone with more weapons and fighters,
ironically using “humanitarian” concern to call for policies that will lead to
even more death and misery. The rebels
are dominated
by jihadi extremists, and any further support to them will further
strengthen the radicals engaged in a project of ethnic cleansing, conquest, and
reactionary theocratic governance. Bombing would only help to further descend
Syria into chaos and death, just as it did in Iraq and Libya.

This is an international proxy war and humanitarian
concerns are being manipulated unscrupulously in support of interests
having nothing to do with concern for innocent lives. Don’t fall for this faux humanitarianism from
which more war, imperialism, and thus more death and destruction will result.

4 comments:

Great article Steven. In fact it is the best article that I have seen on this topic. The tactic of not allowing civilians to leave was used by the Muslin Croat faction in Sarajevo. In fact the Muslim-Croats killed anyone attempting to leave. Justification for NATO was established by framing Milosevic whose only gilt was an attempt to save a united Yugoslavia. Radio Television Belgrade was bombed but not a word from the journalists while Charlie Hebdo was treated as a crime.

If the west wants to get rid of ''terrorism'', then must stop the flow of arm, money to the so called "rebels"(MODERATES OR NON MODERATE)! But, everyone know who the terrorists & rebels are:''the foot soldiers of CIA/Pentagon (proxies)Now that you got it, have a nice day!

incredible how many intelligent people are totally shielding off to this kind of information - they just don't want to talk or think about it. Cognitive dissonance is a splitting headache. I got weary of MSM 'news' during the Cast Lead operation and then saw only more blatant forged narratives being fed out. It really is horrifying that it fucking works, too!

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